


By Now

by Ashilaa_A03



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Character from our world, Oneshot Prompts Challenge, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-10
Updated: 2020-08-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:28:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25824385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ashilaa_A03/pseuds/Ashilaa_A03
Summary: **Oneshot ** By now Adelaide had established that she was not in the same place she had fallen asleep in. That realisation had struck her somewhere between trying to go to sleep in the woods only to wake up with twigs digging into her back and her head on a rock where a pillow would usually be, and seeing the tall lanky pale faced, dark haired, blue-eyed, red-scarf-wearing Merlin.
Comments: 9
Kudos: 9





	By Now

**Author's Note:**

> This work is also posted on FF.Net
> 
> Ok so this is kinda of a formatting experiment for A03 as FF.net is slightly different. 
> 
> This work was born of a prompt: Person A touching Person B’s face and telling them that their dad is really soft. It's different to how I usually write and I hope you enjoy it.

_Kilgharrah knew the vision was coming and as such, he was unprepared for it. Time was like a river; it followed the current until it found a crack in the riverbed._

**

By now Adelaide had established that she was not in the same place she had fallen asleep in, and she was not going to be leaving any time soon. That realisation had struck her somewhere between trying to go to sleep in the woods only to wake up with twigs digging into her back and her head on a rock where a pillow would usually be, and seeing the tall lanky pale faced, dark haired, blue-eyed, red-scarf-wearing Merlin.

They had cast the guy who played him very well because she almost thought that she had somehow sleep-walked onto the set of the show. Except everything was out in the open and there were no cameras. Anywhere.

There were also no light sources that didn’t come from the Sun or a candle.

It was just a little bit too much like the stories her sister would try and get her to read. At the time it was just a stupid annoyance but now Adelaide sort of wished she had read those stories. At least she would know where to go or what to do.

**

_Time was like a river; it followed the current until it found a crack in the riverbed. At that point it was only natural for the flow to drift between the cracks and pool in an unsuspecting crevice._

**

By now she had managed to find lodgings – ok well find was a strong word. She had no money, she apparently dressed like a man and she didn’t have a Denman brush or any sort of product to tame her hair with, so she also looked like a tramp. Of course, that wasn’t such a problem in Medieval England – except she wasn’t so sure that was where she was. Maybe Adelaide was in whatever era of England was before the medieval bit of it. She hadn’t taken history. How would she know?

So she had managed to steal enough of the odd looking heavy coins from the knights that traipsed around the town (village?) square. Again, who knew?

Either way, she had managed to steal enough from the knights. They were not kind people – most of them. If she was going to be honest, they were actually dicks. Dicks with giant swords. So it was best to stay away from them.

And for the most part she did. And she managed to get lodgings in a tavern. And she’d even managed to find herself a job and buy herself a dress with the money from said job.

It was a good enough job. Men stared at chest as she gave them drinks because she was a serving wench. At the very least, they made no comment about her skin colour. It turned out that the people of whatever-century were sexist but not racist. Somehow, the human race had devolved by her time and wasn’t that swell?

**

_At that point it was only natural for the flow to drift between the cracks and pool in an unsuspecting crevice. It was best to allow the current to wander where it felt the need to. Sooner or later it would join the flow again._

**

By now she was regretting her decision to steal from that one overbearingly obnoxious knight. She had a good thing going with the sexist job and she was blending in fairly well. She only called people ‘fucking imbecilic dickheads’ a handful of times per day now – and usually they were too drunk to understand the future speak anyways. Who knew that that was future speak?

And Adelaide would only steal from the ones who were really drunk and fully deserved it. And it was only because the rent had gone up. Why would the rent go up? Oh yeah taxes. That was another thing she had forgotten about. Because taxes were taken out of pay checks in the future. Because currency was a bunch of ones and zeros.

Of course, when she had tried to explain this to the knight she’d stolen from he had called her a witch. And that was really the brunt of why she was regretting her decision.

Because Uther Pendragon – stupid name – was not a big fan of witches apparently. Yeah she’d learnt that about two weeks into her new life with the whole burning-at-the-stake thing. Who _fucking_ _knew_? And the knight had told him all about the future speak so she’d been thrown in the dungeon for possible dealings in Witchcraft and Wizardry.

So yeah.

At least there was straw in the dungeon, so she wasn’t just on the stone-cold floor. And that was not a saying anymore – it was the literal truth. The downside of the dungeon was that it stunk of piss and shit and BO. There was a suspect stain in the corner of the room that quickly became plainly fact once the guard had taken her waste bin – again a very different connotation to what she was used to – and ordered her to dump it into the corner. That was highly unhygienic, but Adelaide figured that if she said that, he would laugh in her face.

And call her a witch. Again.

**

_Sooner or later it would join the flow again. But until that point, it waited for the right moment to be seen._

**

By now she’d met Merlin. And Arthur. That was cool.

They’d come to the dungeon asking her whether she was actually a witch or not. Arthur had been sort of sweet in a pompous I-know-better-than-you-and-don’t-you-dare-lie-to-me-possible-witch way, but how was she supposed to answer that? Was there some sort of witch-test that she could do, because she was pretty sure that hadn’t been a part of the show at any point.

When she pointed that out, they had both looked a little bit puzzled. It was a bit of a pointed question towards Merlin, she had to admit, because wasn’t he supposed to be able to sense people with magic around him? If that was something she’d made up then she was going to have a bit of a problem. Because if the actual MC wasn’t able to figure out a way to save her then she was kinda screwed.

It seemed like Merlin got the hint though. Because he told Arthur he was sure she was telling the truth. Of course, Arthur did not look as sure as Merlin but that wasn’t Adelaide’s business – except it maybe was because if they couldn’t do anything then she was going to die. At a pyre. Or a stake. Which one was it?

She’d also met Morgana. That was not so cool.

Particularly because she wasn’t quite sure what season she’d found herself in until that point but once she saw the near racoon eyes and the ugly green eyeshadow, Adelaide knew that she was in at least season 2.5. Great. Morgana was actually becoming evil.

Two thumbs up.

Morgana almost definitely knew that she wasn’t a witch, but she also seemed just slightly beyond caring about Adelaide. Maybe it was some sort of displaced sense of survivor’s guilt? Who knew?

**

_But until that point, it waited for the right moment to be seen. And it seemed that the right moment was now._

**

By now, she was really _really_ regretting stealing from the knight who’d pretended to be really drunk. And getting a job at the tavern. And not reading those stories. And talking about digital currency. Adelaide was regretting a whole lot of things as she was forced to kneel on the floor in front of the wise old king Uther. Well – at least she had her sarcasm.

There was maybe a little bit of hope that Merlin would come to the rescue like he did for literally every other person who was shown in this position on the show.

Except – she hadn’t been seen on the show had she? Did that mean something? It didn’t bode very well for her if there was an unaired storyline where Merlin wasn’t able to save the girl who was wrongfully accused of witchcraft because she was from the future.

Uther belittled her and she plead her case.

**

_And it seemed that the right moment was now. The vision flowed over Kilgharrah, drowning him in its power._

**

By now Adelaide knew. She knew a lot of things but the main one was that she was going to die. Uther had given the go ahead. Death by fire – yikes. Well if she was going to die then at the very least she was going to go out with a bang.

Arthur stood her up. He said he was sorry.

Adelaide patted his face. She told him it was alright because his dad was a hypocrite.

Obviously that confused the large man who had probably been knocked on his head enough times during his training that it was any wonder he would be able to run a kingdom efficiently. Maybe that’s why he didn’t see the whole Lancelot/Genevieve thing. So she elaborated.

After all, it wasn’t Arthur’s fault that his dad was, actually, a dumb softy so he asked an actual high priestess to help his wife conceive a child, ultimately fuck up the balance of nature, then commit mass genocide for a set of people who hadn’t done anything because he was too stupid to read the instructions on his favourite toy.

The room was silent. And then it was not.

The words hadn’t stopped her from being dragged to the pyre – she’d learn it was a pyre not a stake (that was a different era) – but it had made her feel a lot better about herself.

No, she wasn’t a witch. Why? Well because she couldn’t preform any magic. What odd words had she spoken? They were just silly things. What’s that? They had witnesses hearing her mutter under her breath and casting devil glances at customers? Well yeah – customer service was a difficult job. What was that? Adelaide was now a prostitute as well as a witch? Not likely. She would have gotten more money if that were the case and then none of this would have happened.

Oh. Adelaide was insolent? Who knew?

Arthur plead her case too, but Uther was apparently not a man who listened to people who knew the facts. He reminded Adelaide of another person in power back – forward? – in her time. Uther was significantly less orange though.

She looked over to Merlin who looked down on the floor. She was sure that action sealed her fate more than anything else that had happened.

So she really was going to die then? Well…that was…was unfair a strong enough word for this situation? She wasn’t sure. Adelaide had never been very good with finding the right words.

**

The vision flowed over Kilgharrah, drowning him in its power. Then it was over and there was one thing left to do.

_“Merlin. Merlin! MERLIN!”_


End file.
